Ricciardo 'gobsmacked' by circuit improvement

Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo admitted he was 'gobsmacked' by how much the circuit dried during the final moments of qualifying for the British Grand Prix.

Ricciardo was fourth following the first runs in Q3, which were affected by rain falling across the final sector of the lap.

As drivers embarked on their second run, they were not able to improve across the opening couple of sectors. However, the previously wet third sector had dried, allowing them to post faster times.

Ricciardo ended up in eighth.

"I didn’t expect it to go quicker at the end of the session there, as the rain kept coming," he said.

"We really thought the track wouldn’t get quicker, Vettel only went out as he didn’t have a time at that point. We have to learn from it I guess – I’m gobsmacked how much faster the circuit got, it must dry a lot quicker here than I thought. We’ll move forwards from there tomorrow."

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel was one of the beneficiaries of the drying track as he leapt up from 10th to second.

"It was very tight in Q1 and Q2, we were quite late going out due to the weather and then in Q3 we were quite early for the final run, but it didn’t matter as in the end the time was okay," he said.

"It’s hard to know how much you can push when the conditions are like that as you’re driving into the unknown. The warm up lap shows you that it's damp and you know it will improve, but by how much is obviously determined by how much risk you take. It seems in the end I took the right amount today, so I’m happy."